{"id":288645,"date":"2025-07-24T19:10:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T19:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/288645\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T19:10:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T19:10:15","slug":"northern-ireland-is-considering-suicide-prevention-legislation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/288645\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland is considering suicide prevention legislation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Health insurance wasn\u2019t designed to cover everything. <\/strong>That\u2019s why it\u2019s so important to offer supplemental benefits from Aflac. Protect your employees\u2019 finances by helping close the coverage gap<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The global mental health crisis keeps growing, with more than 720,000 suicide deaths per year. Now, one country believes it\u2019’s up to each public servant to keep an eye out for mental distress warning signs.<\/p>\n

Where in the world?<\/strong> Legislators in Northern Ireland recently introduced the Suicide Prevention Training Bill, which would provide suicide prevention training to all public workers, the Irish News reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Northern Ireland, since its latest 2021 census, has a population of roughly 1.9 million, but 70% don\u2019t receive mental health services. In 2023 alone, 221 people died by suicide. Supporters of the bill believe that the government should do more to prevent suicide and that it starts with government workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is about getting everyone on the frontline some level of training so that they will have the confidence and basic skills to use the right language, and to be able to guide that person towards the proper support available,\u201d \u00d3rlaith\u00ed Flynn, chair of Stormont\u2019s All-Party Group on Suicide Prevention, told the Irish News.<\/p>\n

Not everyone thinks the proposed legislation will help the mental health crisis in Northern Ireland. \u201cIn many many cases there are no warning signs, people don\u2019t talk about this stuff, or the signs are really subtle,\u201d Siobh\u00e1n O\u2019Neill, a professor at Ulster University, told the BBC<\/a>. \u201cRecognizing when someone is thinking about suicide and having those conversations and thinking about the warning signs\u2014that\u2019s a much more complex matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Satellite view. <\/strong>Suicide rates in the US reached near-record highs in 2022<\/a>, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and some employers, like Cardinal Health, CVS, and Lululemon have deployed mental health training for employees, HR Brew previously reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Employers hope that workers will recognize warning signs in their peers and be able to help, when appropriate. And organizations like the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention offers workplace training on how employers should handle mental health distress.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean that the manager or the employee needs to be an expert,\u201d Cara McNulty, former president of behavioral health and mental well-being at CVS Health, told HR Brew<\/a>. \u201cIt just helps generate the conversation. And the more conversations we have, the more we normalize that people don\u2019t have to suffer in silence.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you or someone you know is in crisis, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988 or chatting online at 988lifeline.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Health insurance wasn\u2019t designed to cover everything. That\u2019s why it\u2019s so important to offer supplemental benefits from Aflac.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[1144,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-288645","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-northern-ireland","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114909795270091438","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}